Grey's Anatomy Season 9: Will Bailey Be Fired? Or Is Someone Else to Blame?

In last week’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy(Season 9, Episode 20, “She’s Killing Me”), several of Bailey’s (Chandra Wilson) patients came in with serious post-op infections... which can be common, but not like this! Originally, Bailey blamed Leah (Tessa Ferrer), who had scrubbed in on her surgeries while she was sick — but then we found out the only common factor in the surgeries was Bailey! Uh oh.

We already know that in the next episode (Episode 21, “Sleeping Monster”), the CDC will come in and investigate Bailey and the hospital. But what will happen next?

Bailey is fired. The worst case scenario is that the CDC finds out Bailey is directly responsible for the outbreak and the hospital has to let her go. But since Bailey’s never been in trouble before (and people at this hospital have kept their jobs over much worse -- hello, LVAD wire), it’s not likely that she would be fired — but it is an option. Plus, if she goes, we might consider jumping ship too.

It’s not Bailey’s fault... but it’s someone else’s. There are many people involved in surgery — nurses, surgical techs, and anesthesiologists, to name a few — that could have been to blame. Although we know Leah is now in the clear, there could have been several other people who were also in the operating room with Bailey who could have been the source of the infection.

Nobody gets fired, but the hospital suffers. Just getting back on its feet (and under new management), the new Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital can’t afford a major scandal — especially one that involves the CDC. Something like this could hurt the new projects the hospital is working on, like Bailey’s genome mapping, and hurt it’s ranking as well.

It was caused by something crazy and completely unrelated to Bailey or the hospital. Grey’s is known for throwing us a curveball when we least expect it, so it wouldn’t be completely impossible for the CDC to find something crazy in their inspection -- or unable to find an answer at all. Could this be the very beginnings of what causes the big shock in the season finale?

Catch the next new episode of Grey’s Anatomy on Thursday, April 25, 2013, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.